Ocean To Ocean Poem by Mystic Qalandar

A river flows toward the ocean—
but not toward any final home.

It flows
from ocean to ocean,
and the ocean never severs
its ancient intimacy with the river.

Tell me, MyKoul—
is it not the ocean itself
that flows as river,

arising from the ocean to the sky,
descending on the mountain tops,
leaving the stillness of glaciers,
flowing through mountains,
wandering across plains,

singing its song
of unity—

not from somewhere to somewhere,
but from itself
to itself?

This ocean has
neither beginning nor end.
Who would hear its hidden music
if it never became a river?

Who would hear its voice
in the glacier's silence,
the mountain's thunder,
the plain's murmur?

Calm in ice,
wild among peaks,
still upon plains—

the same water
wearing different voices.

Can the river refuse its flowing?
Can water deny
the earth's downward call?
Can the child
leave its mother's breast
and call itself separate?

The river does not journey
to become the ocean.
It journeys
because it is already ocean.

Its flowing is not exile.
Its wandering is not loss.
Its return is not arrival.

The river is the ocean
remembering itself
in motion.

And perhaps creation
is only this:

the Infinite
taking form,
the Silent
becoming song,
the One
appearing as many—

only to show,
through every turn,
that not one drop was ever lost
from the boundless sea.

Then MyKoul says:

Lord,
I do not ask
to choose my way.

Teach me the river's
surrender.

Let me flow
where You command.

For You accept
all who yield to You
and stand at Your word.

And when I reach
what I thought was the end,

let me find
there was never an end—

only the Ocean,

flowing through me,

from Ocean
to Ocean,

forever.

—MyKoul